Portraits

"I prefer the reaction of ordinary people [over] the academic because those reactions are honest. The reaction is not specific, but it must take a moment. [It] taps into the common experience that is being pointed to in the work." JS

Kurt

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013

The Leper

oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013

Denis

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013

Date with the Devil

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013

Fred No 1

oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012

Rick

oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012

Cynthia Nixon as Miranda

oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012

Q 1

oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012

Q 2

oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012

Rick and W

oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012

Q 4

oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012

Ian

oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012

Bernie

oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Bynum

oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

John

oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Portrait of Joyce Carol Oates

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Brother Edwin

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Marek

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2010

The Ornaments

Oil, 48x48, 2011

Keep It In

mixed media, 6x6, 2015

Abstract Landscapes

Huntsman

Mixed Media, 18 x 12, 2015

They Listen For

Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2014

But It Shimmers

Mixed Media, 18 x12, 2014

We Huddle Close

Mixed Media, 12 x 9, 2014

Tbalance

Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2014

Unanswered Letters

Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2014

Attic

Every face shows a story, even if unwittingly or unknowingly. Joanna Salska is interested in how the face portrays trauma or “cracks”, as evidence of the disjuncture between an individual psychology and social conventions. She manifests cracks visually as moments of repetition and fragmentation in familiar objects such as doll’s heads, masks and models.

Salska’s paints on square formats. These surfaces are both landscape and portrait, accounting for the discrete and vast locations of the human subject. Salska views her work as a kind of “psychological excavation project”, focused on finding the unmediated self within the compromised self of social expectation.

It's me (it's you) it's me (it's me)

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Roland's Dream

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009

The Attic

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009

All Considered

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009

Avoid the Dragon Flies

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009

Clockmaker

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009

Kasper

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009

Nigel

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009

Nightlife

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2010

Spice Merchant

Oil, 48x48, 2010

The Apprentice

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2010

The Fourth Floor

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2010

Approaching Bedilia

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2010

Book of Jon

tempera and oil on masonite, 56 x 48, 2011

Bouyeas Bread

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Cocoon

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Fusiloging

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Highway Patrol

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Jem

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Listen to the Frog

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Mud Hut

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Penetints

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2011

Ruthie

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

The Beholder

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

The Librarian

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

The Miner

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

The Pendulum

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

The Spider

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

To the West

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

When I Get Home

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2011

Coluzeum III

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Coluzeum

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

The Collector

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2011

Without my walking stick

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2011

Sacrament (After Mass)

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

Overthrow (Coluzeum IV)

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2011

Centurion

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

The Loyal Steer

Wilson

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012

Sister

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012

Masks and Mirrors

Salska's production is intuitive above all else. She is driven toward a subject and obsessively studies the matter in media. She oscillates between forms and union of those forms in a symbiosis of geometry and gesture.

Rejected Visage

Tempera and oil, 48 x 48, 2013

Mrs. Randezvous

Tempera and oil, 48 x 48, 2013

C 2

Oil, 48 x 48, 2013

Please stand back, there's nothing to see here

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013

Marzena 23

Collage, 5.5 x 8.5 2016

Michael 2

Oil, 48 x 48, 2013

Michael 52

Mixed Media, 5.5 x 3.5, 2014

The Lower Convent

Mixed Media, 4 x 7, 2014

Landscapes

Salska has always made small collage studies, using cut up photographs and geometric scraps of painted paper to work through visual ideas. The scraps of paper are like stones for a stonemason: their nature informs the maker as to how they cohere into unified compositions. The resulting collages are both finished works in themselves, and studies that are translated into paintings.

Skaryszewski Park

Mixed Media, 13 x 17, 2014

They Listen For

mixed media, 12 x 18, 2014

Skaryszewski Park 4

mixed media, 13 x 17, 2014

Declamatory Tone

mixed media, 12 x 18, 2014

Unanswered Letter

Mixed Media, 12x18, 2014

Great Silence

mixed media, 12 x 18, 2014

A Sense of Absence

mixed media, 18 x 12, 2014

Skaryszewski Park 5

Mixed Media, 13x17, 2014

Looping Wool

Mixed Media, 13 x 17, 2014

The Three Graces

Mixed Media, 17 x 13, 2014

Skaryszewski Park 6

Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2014

Terribly Patient

Mixed Media, 18 x 12, 2015

Shu

Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2015

I'd Rather Be Horizontal

mixed media, 12 x 18, 2014

Alterrealism

I Walk the Way

mixed media, 12 x 18, 2015

Down and Out

collage, 5.5x8, 2016

See-Nothing

mixed media, 5.25 x 5.25, 2015

They Never Argue

mixed media, 12 x 18, 2015

Discard the Mask

mixed media, 12 x 18, 2015

Axed Down

mixed media, 12 x 18, 2015

The Miracle of Rage

mixed media, 12 x 18, 2015

None but I

Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2015

Jack 44

Mixed Media, 12 x 18, 2015

Intolerance

Salska's work is primarily figurative with an emphasis on emotive gesture and color. Salska believes that gesture is the ultimate expression of emotion; pulling with it the extension of the subconscious.

Taxi

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2011

...and arrow

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2012

Gummy Girl's Son

oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2012

Approaching Bedilia

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 96, 2011

A leper

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2013

Off Johnson's Pass

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2010

To Frog

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2010

Submariner II

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2009

Pieta No 2

tempera and oil on masonite, 36 x 48, 2009

Round 3

tempera and oil on masonite, 48 x 48, 2008

I Cannot Run

Mixed Media, 4 x 6, 2014

Xue

Salska's portraits attempt to capture the true emotive experience of her subjects – some essential quality or characteristic that is not readily visible to the average encounter. Using photographic imagery as source material, the timely precision of the snapshot often illuminates these moments of the essential nature of a subject. Milliseconds caught in time have exposed parts of people that could never be known in real time. Of course, these moments do occur in real time – a shape, a light, a color, an expression sparks. It is these moments of exposure that activate Salska to painting. This process is intuitive, collaborative, and energetic.